An argument for a new normative theory (and a PhD thesis)

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
81

Yes very helpful.

You missed my point, it seems. Daniel made the following claim: moral freedom can only be violated by something that also has moral freedom. So far he has refused to clarify or defend that claim, despite that I have asked him to do so.

The conflation occurs because regardless of how you want to define freedom you have to note the gap between what is freedom and what is a limit or restriction of freedom. Daniel made the claim that moral freedom can only be restricted by someone else who also has moral freedom; thus he brought into it the issue of limitations of freedom, and he confused the two categories I already mentioned, namely the category of “what is freedom” and the category of “what is a limitation of freedom”. That would be fine if he would explain exactly why, with respect to moral freedom, anything in category 2 must also be in category 1, but he hasn’t done that.

Again missing my point about the necessary finitude of any freedom as well as about the difference between freedoms and those things which limit freedoms. But I’ll let it go because apparently this discussion is only interested in moral freedom without any interest in taking a look at what “freedom” more broadly actually is or means.

You are an incredibly sloppy reader, if you think I was claiming that the unavailability of coffee is a normative constraint. I never said nor implied anything like that.

You brought up the importance of context. I want to see “normative freedom” placed in context with either a broader swath of other classes of freedom and/or with a universal definition of freedom in the general case. I said this in my last post. You seem to have ignored it. Are you or Daniel willing to contextualize the narrow “moral freedom” by explaining it vis a vis other kinds of freedom and/or freedom in the general case?

Nope, you’re being sloppy again. My conclusion here isn’t based on “something I’ve not read”, how could anyone base something on what they haven’t read? No, my conclusion is based in part on what I have read so far of this thesis and in other part on the conversational exchanges we have had so far.

My conclusion, based on all that I’ve seen so far, is that Daniel doesn’t know how to think, or perhaps that he simply doesn’t wish to think. Which is somewhat shocking considering he claims to be at the point of writing a PhD thesis…

82

I never said anything at all about god or government granted rights. What I said was that freedom to your own choices, choices over things which belong to you, is what is morally relevant, and that whether or not there are pretty girls at a party is not a choice that belongs to you.

83

Well, I apologize because I was thinking that you used the word “right”, but this is exactly what you stated (“..it is not your choice to make..”):

Both of those are totally indefensible claims. Either would be thrown out of court. They are ridiculous. And any professor who didn’t see them as idiotic claims, would have to be an idiot himself.

Do you have some really strange definition of “understanding” that the rest of us don’t share?

If you say that my options/choices are A or B when in reality my options are A or C, then you have created a MISUNDERSTANDING of my reality or my choices. YOU took away my freedom to UNDERSTAND. How can you possibly not see that?

84

The sloppy thinking and the categorical conflations are staggering. How this can be the product of academic philosophy, at supposedly the highest levels, only confirms what I’ve already seen in academic philosophy. I’m not saying this to be mean to Daniel, obviously he put in a lot of time and work into his paper… but he deserves someone to be honest with him.

85

Again, the choice that belongs to you is not whether to go to a party with attractive girls at it, as you have no claim on whether there are attractive girls at a party you attend or not. You have the choice to go to the party or not to (this is rather a simplification but it will do for the sake of this point), whether there are attractive girls at the party may influence whether you wish to go there, but it does not affect whether you understand your choice to go or not.

I am not sure if I am using understand in a different way, I think it is perhaps that I am referring to your understanding of your freedom over a choice that belongs to you, in this case whether or not you move yourself to the party you have been invited to, rather than to your understanding of whether going to the party will best serve your interests.

86

So freedom or choices are casually related to their substance, but directly to identifiable logical choices.

In other words it matters little if one knows there are girls at the party, what does matter is the freedom to go or abstain from going.

This leaves a divide between two types of logic. The one where it would be helpful to acquaint ones’ self with only going if there were quite girls there, is contingent upon, the ability to know. If you do not know, then it is a kind of categorical duty to find out, if, the primal reason to go would be to meet quite girls. Why would you go if they are not there?

Or is there some overbearing block why you could find out, even if you should? Perhaps your friend is like Descartes’ Evil Genius, he wants to trick you into a game of chance, that perhaps, he knows there are girls there, but in fact there are none, because he is jealous of you, and he wants to take the quite girls to a different party?

But is this realistic? Is information gathering that poverty ridden, as to prevent gaining the knowledge of the girls presence at the party only from this one person, who may hate you by now?

I think the difference lies in a richer environment, where there are several ways you should go to the party, and giving your choices more substance. Otherwise, it is not really a choice with inherent information.

Again the point is, in the later, contingency is present, giving choices real evaluative ability based on facts, while in the former it is merely a choice based on identifying your own feelings rooted in guessing. It is not a contingent choice, but a necessary one.

It’s almost like saying, with limited to none information of the whereabouts of the gurls, all you need to do is identify your own internal feelings on the matter.

A normative theory needs both necessary internal reasons, and external information to validate them.

87

Well…
It isn’t as if I haven’t argued against even more ludicrous notions.

It seems that you are missing an element in critical thinking. Let me see if I can shine a little light on that issue.

If a person is traveling down a road that splits and the road signs say “Hillsboro” for one direction and “Newberg” for the other, the person must choose which path to take. He has only those signs to guide him at that juncture. His understanding of his environment is that he has a choice to go toward either Newberg or toward Hillsboro.

  • First, do you agree that those are the choices that he understands to have?

And now let’s say that McDevil comes along just before the person got to the juncture and reversed the signs.

He still has the choice options of either Newberg or Hillsboro. He still understands that those are his choices. But now his understanding of which path leads to which town is different. He has been given a MISunderstanding.

The choice of where people build their towns and how they place their road signs, does not belong to him. You are saying that it is not wrong for McDevil to switch the road signs because the signs did not belong to the person and thus what deception took place is not morally wrong.

  • Is that how you see it so far?
88

James: Well, I haven’t considered the question for a very long time so I may change my mind on this if I realize there is some aspect of the person’s freedom over that which belongs to them at issue here, but yes, I think saying that it would not be wrong for McDevil to change the signs is my position here. He does indeed misunderstand the consequences of following one road or the other, but he does not misunderstand the choice over that which belongs to him which he is making.

89

Since You have ignored my philosophical arguments, which I have re-read several times for its soundness, and still feel that the underlying notions presented were ignored by theorems of meaning in terms of basic usage and not of an obvious logically fallacious argument, this will be my last response to You.

Good luck and best wishes for a successful resolution and reception for Your dissertation, and a fruitful acceptance by the committee, as well as your future contributions to the field.

You do show promise, but not a proper response to valid objections to your material.

90

I chose that particular wording so as to form a very easy to recognize fundamental question. If you are dubious about that question, you are dubious about your entire proposal. The fundamental issue is a person being able to and having the freedom to understand and choose his own path in life.

One must question of what in your analysis actually belongs to anyone such as to make moral decision making even possible.

  • Newberg is filled with Nazis who suspect the person to be a Jew. Hillsboro is filled with Jews who suspect the person of being a Nazi. The person was trying to get to a safe haven. McDevil quite possibly killed the person. But such an extreme situation need not be the issue.

  • There is perhaps a disguised trap door to your left to plunge you to your death and solid ground to your right. You don’t own the ground. So McDevil misleading you to toward the trap door is not wrong … by your moral code.

  • McDevil can startle or scare you into stepping into traffic or falling from a ledge without being concerned about moral wrong doing … by your moral code. You certainly don’t own McDevil’s voice nor the air that carries it.

  • McDevil can drop poison into the aspirin that you buy at the store before you purchase it without being concerned of moral wrongness … by your moral code.

  • Dr McDevil can freely pass disabling diseases to you so as to ensure his profitable future income without concern of wrong doing … by your moral code.

  • Nurse or neighbor McDevil can freely offer your infant child with finger, nipple, or breast choices to infect with subtle neurological and systemic diseases so as to steer political and race dominance toward his chosen future design without being concerned about moral wrong doing … by your moral code.

There is nothing outside of your own body that you necessarily own. Even the things that you believe to be yours could have been a deception and not actually yours at all. And thus McDevil can freely mislead you concerning anything and everything around you, thereby making it impossible for you to make rational decisions or have any freedom to move about or do anything at all without risk of sudden death, disease, or dismemberment. And as every person becomes desperate to survive, it is virtually guaranteed that you will be surrounded by lethal competition. You will be living in McDevil’s Hell.

It seems to me that every person in your world would be totally imprisoned, stifled by deceit, doubt, and misfortune. They would not only feel insecure, but actually truly be insecure. I am sure the death rate would increase dramatically along with the rage and violence from frustration, suspicion, and desperation.

  • So exactly what is the purpose of this proposed moral code?
91

You own your own mind and so the choice to continue your consciousness, you own your own body and so the choice to keep it in working order by not getting hit by cars or falling into pit-traps. When McDevil essentially murders you through deception, they do you a great wrong.

So no, according to my moral theory none of the things you have just presented are morally permissible.

The situation actually isn’t as straightforward as you present it as it seems it matters a) why you need to get to one town over the other and b) whether McDevil puts the signs back afterwards. If, for example, you are transporting anti-venom to a hospital which has an envenomed patient, then sending you to the wrong town would be wrong in that it would kill that patient. But the essence of your question is what I was responding to, and I don’t think it is “do you get to choose your own path in life” I think it is “do you get to choose where you end up in life”. I think the answer to that is fairly obviously no. You can choose to train all your life and try to become an Olympic gold medalist, but you don’t get to just choose to be one, that involves actually winning the race/the game/whatever. In short: you get to choose your own path, but not necessarily where that path will lead you.

92

.
Well, I can see that didn’t work. Perhaps focus the light a little more sharply…

Now wait already. If you have the choice to continue your consciousness, then you must have sufficient understanding of your situation so as to make that choice. If you don’t have proper understanding of your situation, you are merely flipping a coin when making decisions and thus do not have the choice to continue, you merely have the choice to flip a coin. As you claim, you haven’t any ownership of what takes place after you decide, so you are not deciding to do anything other than flip a coin and hope.

Same here. You don’t own the moral right to know which path will lead to what. You do not own the consequences of your decisions. You only own the right to flip a coin. What comes of it is not your decision, but merely whatever McDevil provides. So, no. You don’t have the choice to survive, merely the choice to flip a coin and take whatever comes.

But McDevil didn’t make your decision. You made the choice. You flipped the coin. McDevil didn’t kill you. You did (according to your proposal).

So what you are saying now is that good and evil are determined by something else. You still have the freedom to understand that you have blind choices from which you might die. Your freedom wasn’t taken away just because you chose a deadly path. So how is that evil or bad?

And what does putting the signs back have to do with anything??

93

Are you aware of what a strawman fallacy is?

If I say that my position is that you need to be able to understand your decisions over those things which belong to you, such as whether you are choosing to end your consciousness or not, it isn’t particularly helpful to say “you don’t mean that” and then argue with a position I didn’t take…

I did not choose to “flip a coin and see what happens” I am choosing to continue my consciousness. If you have led me into a pit, or the waiting clutches of those who would murder me, then you have violated that choice.

94

You have been arguing that you do not own what happens to you after your decision. So are you trying to say that the only thing that counts as a moral misbehavior is leading someone directly into death, “booby-trapping”?

What about suffering? If McDevil misleads you into a life long curse of suffering because people think that you are a thief or murderer, he has not violated your moral code? What if the trap door merely broke your leg or blinded you? What if he merely removes the lock that you had put on your bicycle such that it got stolen? What if he is just causing you to spend a lot more money than was otherwise necessary?

95

This is an analysis of morality looking back into the past. You want to put a label of “moral” or “immoral” on some event which has already happened. That’s why you think that “putting the signs back” is significant. By putting the signs back, the number of events to consider and analyze is strictly contained. Furthermore, you seem to take the view that you know the consequences of the deception - again this is a indication that you are using hindsight.

In reality, moral decisions need to be made in the present. If I am at the crossroad and I am deciding whether to switch the signs, I have no idea exactly who will be harmed and how. It’s possible that someone has to get to a hospital and the sign change will lead to his death. It’s possible that nobody will be diverted. It’s possible that a few people will be mildly inconvenienced.

But changing the signs benefits me only because of the pleasure I get from messing up somebody’s travel. Considering that the worst case event is that someone suffers serious harm, it seems clear that changing the signs would be immoral. That’s an evaluation made in the present.

96

James is saying that you are not choosing anything in any practical sense. Since your list of choices and the understanding of those choices is based on false information, your decision is essentially the same as relying on dumb luck. Flipping a coin would statistically produce the same results as reasoning and choosing “to continue your consciousness”.

97

If the deception led to you being blinded or having your leg broken, it would have violated your freedom over your body, as you did not choose to be blind or have a broken leg.

I am not ignoring consequences, I am merely saying that deceiving you into a situation where your freedom is violated such as getting a broken leg or your bike being stolen, is different from deceiving you in such a way as to hinder your projects without violating your freedom over those things which belong to you.

98

You have consistently said that most lying is not immoral. That must mean that you know it does not lead to these consequences. How do you know the consequences before the leg is broken or the blinding occurs?

Again, you’re entire analysis of the morality of lying is based on hindsight. After you see the consequences, you decide if the lie was immoral. That’s not morality, that’s fault finding.

You decided that wasting somebody’s time does not violate his freedom. And that’s the objective evaluation of it?

99

You left out:

Affecting a person’s money is affecting their health via insurance options, exercise activities, social contacts, family relations, nutrition options, transportation options, living environment options, sense of security … you name it.

Of course every alteration in my course, whether increasing or decreasing my freedom, also affects people around me or in contact with me. What I say and do, whether deceptive or not, affects others, some quite strongly. Everyone is reacting to everyone else.

I can’t think of anything at all that I do, any “project”, that isn’t related to my body or my decision to continue “my consciousness” (my life). Everything that I do is a course that I make decisions concerning and I do nothing unrelated to my intention to live, to “remain conscious”. That is probably something that you don’t understand, but is true. At this point, you would want proof of that, but such a request would in itself violate my freedom, requiring that I divulge information that might strongly affect the future of my body.

So it seems to me that any deception you play on me is a “violation of my freedom” and thus immoral, by your own proposal.

And as phyllo pointed out, you would have to just guess at what my “projects” might be and if any deception you are playing will interfere with them and my health. Your ability to guess at what my personal projects are and how they are related to my life is very minimal. In a sense, you are interfering with them right now, but positively or negatively?

100

Phyllo: Any consequentialist account of morality is going to determine whether an action was immoral based on it’s consequences, or it’s likely consequences if we are expected-value rather than actual-value consequentialists.

That’s because “causing” you to spend a lot more money than was otherwise necessary would need enormous unpicking in order to be discussed.

That is definitely not true. If I pay you a million dollars then I haven’t affected your ability to choose to continue the function of your body, unless you are in some circumstance where you need that million dollars in order to do so. Likewise if I sell you something that costs a million dollars, I haven’t violated your ability to choose to continue to be healthy, unless you have spent your last penny on this thing and are now about to starve. Even then, it would be very odd to say that I have made you starve, though I may be obligated to spend some of my new million dollars on some food for you to prevent you from doing so.